HGCNY was founded in 2002 by Janet Allen, Michelle Welcher, and Dan Carroll. We started as a local garden group, or as we described ourselves “A garden club with a difference” — the difference being that we focused on creating habitat with native plants rather than merely creating ornamental gardens.
From the beginning, our meetings have been free and open to the public, another difference from usual garden clubs. This was importance to us since our mission was an educational rather than social. We emphasized native plants and earth-friendly practices, though our reason for using native plants was mostly for creating “a sense of place.”
In 2004, we discovered Wild Ones and became a chapter of this small but growing (mostly Midwest) national organization. For a long time, HGCNY was the only Wild Ones chapter in NYS, but we’re pleased to note that there are now additional NYS Wild Ones chapters and there’s room for many more! Wild Ones itself has also expanded and now has chapters in 34 states from Maine to Florida and from Washington to California and in states in between.
Along the way, our initial focus on native plants eating “a sense of place” was transformed by Doug Tallamy’s work and by his inspiring and informative book Bringing Nature Home. We now understood that native plants were fundamental to life on earth because they supported the insect life that underlies healthy ecosystems.